How The UK Magazine Industry Keeps Up With Digital Platforms

UK’s magazine readership has not come to an end; it just underwent changes. Millions are still reading magazines, particularly the women’s publications and TV listings. These versions however are not those being accessed through newsstands but rather via digital distribution. Lifestyle and celebrity titles are the sectors with the steepest decline in subscription. Marketing strategies during the past five years were not successful enough to help publishers recover from decline in sales. Did magazine subscribers lose interest in these publications or did magazine journalism fail to adapt to with the new merchant of publications – the Internet?

Consumers still want to obtain information from the magazine sectors they support, but a growing number of today’s readers prefer access to the digital editions. Circulation methods have to be effective for different brands to penetrate the market, as competition is tougher with every click. According to Statista, around three million readers visit a women’s magazine website monthly on average from April 2016 to March 2017. Some of the leading brands that rank by print and digital reach are Tesco with a monthly reach of 9.7 million readers and visits, Asda Good Living with 5 million, and OK, Waitrose Good Food, BBC Good Food, and Take a Break with over 3 million.

Advertising in digital copies is different as well as shorter time spent on digital content affected ad revenue generation. At first, advertisers were reluctant of investing much money on new subscriptions, but nowadays, they manage to use the digital platform to maximize reach as well. Magazine advertising expenditures totalled to £877 million GBP in 2016. Ad spending is projected to decrease further in a couple of years.

Other Related Facts On Magazine Readership in the UK
1. There are around 40 million monthly subscriptions on all magazine sectors in 2016.
2. The number of young people reading magazines outside school hours has declined by 34% since 2005.
3. Average spending on magazines for readers aged 30 to 49: 60 pence a week
4. Magazine readers of age groups 65 and above spend around £1.1 weekly.
5. Subscriptions and circulation are slightly down by 2% in 2015 though there are big brands noted for steep declines. These are for magazines with circulations of more than 900,000. Digital editions cover 4% of the total subscriptions. News magazines included in the study generated online traffic of 13 million unique visitors every month. Changes in readers behaviour was one of the factors considered in traffic shifts.

The Internet is today’s content distributor. Let Datablazers help your business thrive in this competitive landscape. DBI can provide you qualified leads/magazine readers or create a marketing questionnaire for your particular campaign. Contact us now, so we could explore ways to expand your reach.